Hon Deputy Speaker, the ACDP believes that, as custodians of our planet, we have the inalienable right to protect our environment, whether it is on land, in the sea or in the air.
This responsibility cannot be entrusted or transferred to multinationals, big or small businesses, or the environmentalists alone, but must be a collaborative effort of the private and public sector, nongovernmental organisations and civil society. It is the belief of the ACDP that these Bills will go a long way toward ensuring that we are indeed serious about protecting our national environmental assets. We are endeavouring to provide for our children and future grandchildren an environment in which they are able to live, work and play without endangering their lives or destroying the flora, fauna and animal species with those protection we have been entrusted.
The ACDP welcomes the adoption of an integrated approach in dealing with the management of our environment, as well as the creation of the Air Quality Advisory Committee and the capacitating of our local government to ensure compliance with respect to the quality of our air. One has only to study the number of respiratory health cases in the Wentworth, Merebank and Bluff communities in the Durban South Basin area to understand that there is indeed a causal link between poor air quality and respiratory diseases.
The ACDP believes that the placement of our marine protected areas under the authority of the Department of Water and Environmental Affairs is indeed a better placement, and will serve to mitigate the devastating impact that exploitation has on our marine protected areas.
The ACDP commends the Water and Environmental Affairs Portfolio Committee for their hard and diligent work on these amending Bills, to which the ADCP gives its support. Thank you. [Applause.]